Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

[quozaxx]

Has anyone found anything comparable to Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness from 5th Edition using the "normal" rules of 6th Edition (and not APG rules)?

 

I can see where one 6th Edition Limitation/Advantage/Power replaces "lost" Powers/Limitation/Advantages from 5th Edition. But what, in your opinion would replace Find Weakness and/or Lack of Weakness.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

Here are a couple of older threads on the same subject:

 

How best to replace "Find Weakness"

 

Request for comments: Replacement for Find Weakness

[randian]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

I substitute Piercing. 6E Advanced Player's Guide. It ignores Hardened but doesn't scale its effect to the value of the target's defense like Armor Piercing does. As a general purpose attack power regular dice are much better than Piercing (half the cost), but if doing BODY is more important to you than doing STUN Piercing is an acceptable substitute.

[Beast]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

Stack say 3 seperate levels of naked AP give each a 1/2 phase to start up and say a 15- act on 1 #2 has a 13- act and # 3 has a 11- act

just think of hardening as some def vs finding weakness and will take the other levels to over come the hardending

flavor with limitations like jammed so you have to take a phase to reset a failed roll or go even more with a failed roll stops you from finding any more FW/AP on that target

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

This character has a rough approximation:

 

John Wrath (6e)

 

 

40 Cyber-Eye: Find Weakness : Armor Piercing (APG Style 1/2 then 1/4 AP; +3/4) for up to 90 Active Points of All Attacks, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (100 Active Points); Requires A Roll (Skill roll (Analyze); Must Make A Roll For Each Level Of Effect; Second Roll Takes A -2 Penalty, Burnout - Can't Roll Again Against A Target Once Roll Is Failed, Burnout Only Affects Target Roll Failed Against; Existing Effect Remains; New Targets Allowed; -1 1/4), IIF (Cybereye; -1/4)

Notes: Grand-fathered "Find Weakness" equivalent.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

The simplest is just extra damage, bought conditioned on making a successful Analyze: Weakness roll. The suggestion on subsequent penalties is a good one, too. You can apply appropriate penalties to the analyze roll, like -1 per 10 points of defense, -2 for hardened or impenetrable defenses, etc. It should probably be harder to analyze the weakness of a tougher target.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

I'd do it as a Multipower, TBH. Now that we have Piercing, AP, and Negation all with their own foil... Your Find Weakness built as AP is going to do no good against Hardened x2 Armor, but maybe the Piercing slot would.

 

Basically, Killer Shrike's solution but three slots - one built as AP, one built as Piercing, one built as Reduced Negation. But haven't messed with Negation much yet, so not sure - it is an adder, not an advantage, right?

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

I always thought the Find Weakness ability to keep halving the defenses was a poor mechanic, and I am perfectly happy to use AP or just extra dice of damage with a Requires a Roll limitation.

 

But if you like the idea of being able to effectively bypass almost all the defenses of a target with successive FW rolls, I think I would do it with a naked advantage AVAD, Defense is 1/2 of regular defenses per FW roll, Does BDY. I put that at +1½ Advantage, although you would get the limitation for Requires a Roll to offset the cost.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

To elaborate a bit of my idea:

+2 DC normal/killing damage, requires a successful Analyze: Weakness roll, 0 END cost, 15 active/10 real cost

+2 DC normal/killing damage, linked to first power, requires subsequent analyze: weakness roll at -2(-3/4?), 0 end cost, 15 active/7 real cost

+2 DC, linked, AW at -4, 0 END, 15/6

+2 DC....AW -6, 15/5

+2 DC....AW -8, 15/4

+2 DC....AW -10, 15/3

 

90 active points(plus the cost of analyze), real cost is around 30 or so(depending on how you value the lims)

 

For that, you get +2 DC for 1 successful AW roll, +4 DC for 2, etc. all the way up to +12 DC(doubling base damage for a 12 DC attack) for a 6th successful roll.

 

you can make it a bit cheaper by allowing penalties to the analyze roll as I suggested above--(-1 per 10 total defense, -2 for resistant defenses, -2 for hardened, -2 for impenetrable, etc.)

[pinecone]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

Has anyone found anything comparable to Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness from 5th Edition using the "normal" rules of 6th Edition (and not APG rules)?

 

I can see where one 6th Edition Limitation/Advantage/Power replaces "lost" Powers/Limitation/Advantages from 5th Edition. But what, in your opinion would replace Find Weakness and/or Lack of Weakness.

 

Here's some ideas I've had so far...

Apx2 RSR

+4DC RSR

Pen RSR

 

you can see a patern I'd guess......one nice thing about this way is Lack of Weak really is not needed.....because they all "Top out" For a more direct model look at the varient for AP where additional levels do add...AP RSR: Analyze, additive AP (much more expensive) RSR: Must have found weak prior, etc...

[Vulcan]

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

Simplest answer, as always: Just bring both over as-is from previous editions.

[ru5150.two]

IMHO the problem with (1E-5E) Find Weakness that 6th Edition attempts to fix (by removing it) is it halved the targets defenses no matter how much defenses the target possessed for a very low 10pt fixed cost - and it did this repeatedly. This effect was powerful and a magnet for min/maxers. It showed up on characters far too often - and outside the character concept.

 

The 'fix' put into 6E is Armor Piercing w/ Requires a Roll X-. Yes not directly but thats the Limited Advantage it competed against. Yes you only get one halving and you have to make the roll every time you fire. So...

 

Progressive Armor Piercing (PAP) - +1/2 for initial level +1/4 for each additional level. The targets defenses are halved when successfully attacked the first time. Defenses are further halved for each successive successful attack - for each additional level PAP purchased for the attack. Hardened eliminates (removes) one level of PAP. For example, Spear purchases a 10d6 EB w/ PAP 3 times (for +1/2+1/4+1/4 = +1). He then attacks a wall. Its defenses will be halved. He then attacks the same wall (and same hex), its defenses are quartered and then for a third time its defenses are 1/8. If the wall was Hardened, Spear would only have been able to achieve 1/4 defenses.

 

If PAP has the Requires a Roll limitation any failure of the roll prevents any further halving of that targets defenses (for that combat).

 

This way *find weakness* costs more for a bigger attack and for more potential halving of defenses. This loosely simulates finding (or forcing) a weakness in the opponents defenses then progressively exploiting it.

 

Alternately, make Find Weakness cost more for more halving of greater defenses. 5 pts base cost for the ability to halve 10 Active points of defense (10 pts minimum?) for the 1st halving, +5 pts for each additional halving. You cannot halve the defense of a target with a greater active point cost than for which you purchased Find Weakness (i.e there is no weakness you can find.

 

This puts the original cost in line with Heroic Campaign point levels but allows it to scale to Superheroic levels.

[Duke Bushido]

Wow.

 

 

Looks like our friend Rich "the lych" McGee has some competition, necromantically....

 

 

[Rich McGee]

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Wow.

 

 

Looks like our friend Rich "the lych" McGee has some competition, necromantically....

 

 

What are you on about?

[Chris Goodwin]

Thread necromancy.  I think that was a lighthearted attempt at finding humor in necromancing the thread with the oldest last post.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Thread necromancy.  I think that was a lighthearted attempt at finding humor in necromancing the thread with the oldest last post.

 

 

Pretty much, yes. 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

You're too subtle for this crowd, Duke...

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

You're too subtle for this crowd, Duke...

 

Thanks, Hugh. 

 

 

how about that!  It took sixty-odd years, but I finally found a place where I'm the _subtle_ one!

 

 

 

[L. Marcus]

... Subtitle ... ?

[Hermit]

Ru5150, I don't believe the Duke meant anything with Malice though perhaps he shouldn't name names in case someone did see it that way. It is certainly okay if anyone wants to raise old threads up for renewed or updated discussion. I've done it myself and there were necromancy jokes then too. I don't think they were at my expense, but more a light hearted observation on the passage of time. That said, if it truly offends you, I think the crew around here can be classy enough to ease off.

[Simon]

Ru5150 will no longer be joining us on these forums.

[Duke Bushido]

K

Okay, rather than let this end on a sour note, let's do this thing!  As always, I am okay being the bad guy by suggesting things that mighty be distasteful, but if you bear with me, I will certainly attempt to explain my various "why's." 

 

 

 

 

On 10/15/2010 at 10:14 AM, Vulcan said:

Re: Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness for 6th Edition.

 

Simplest answer, as always: Just bring both over as-is from previous editions.

 

This _is_ the simplest solution, and arguably, owing to both the simplicity and ease of the solution and the relatively simple mechanic of the original build, the most elegant.  Not only that, but it takes something from older editions, which I always love.

 

Almost always love.

 

I don't love this.

 

I so much don't love that even today, as an unrepetant 2e player, I wouldn't do it.  See, even way back when, I never liked Find Weakness.  Well, I mean, as a player, I _loved_ it, and I loved it for all the reasons that I hated it as a GM: dirt-cheap endlessly-stacking Armor Piercing that can reduce (eventually, with lucky rolls) reduce any defense to 1. It _might_ be possible to get it to zero, but given the way we figured the halving (ie, rounding fractions from .5 up to one before applying the next halving, etc), we never pulled it it below one.

 

Still, back then we had settled on 18-24 DC as a character's "main" attack-  21-28 Body from a KA--  against 1rPD...

 

Gets ugly pretty quickly....

 

So...

 

 

As noted earlier in the thread, this was a must-have for all of us in our early power-mongering days (where 20DC was a "back-up power" and a "big" power could push deep into the 30s).

 

It got so ubiquitous and so _ridiculous_ that, way back when 1e and 2e were the _only_ e, one of the first things I did when I got pushed into the GM's chair was to ban Find Weakness.

 

This was well-received initially, but eventually complaints started (I suspect because change is _slow_, and after a few years of endless power escalation, it was hard to crank it down, and there were other adjustments to be figured out.  I mean, after deciding to make 20 DC a "big" or "emergency" power, we we're still building with 30 and more DEF!) and the complaints got worse and worse once they started. 

 

Then we would root out the _actual_ problem behind the complaint --  for example: I can't buy enough DEF to last two turns because at that point, Joey the Ninja has cut my DEF down to a quarter or less of what they were!  Eventually, you move from 'defense is capped too low' and 'defenses should be cheaper' to 'Find Weakness is problematic' to 'Armor Piercing as a mechanic (the ability to cut defenses in half as a concept)' needs to be reigned in.'

 

So we initially capped AP at double and capped FW at double.

 

Or 'Fights are dragging on forever!'  This was true, especially after we reigned in AP /FW.  Nobody _won_ a fight, at least not through clever tactics or teamwork, and certainly not through slugging it out, especially not with power and DEF levels where we were running them.  It was a matter of "the last guy standing and gasping for breath is the defect winner" or "the first guy who recovers enough END to slap the neutralizer gauntlets on the other guy wins by default!"  (I guess you can see why Drain (or Transfer): Recovery was the most popular asjustment power....)

 

Eventually we figured out the problem was that characters had to be able, by default, to deliver noticeable damage to one another.  Invulnerable only works in comic books, and even then, only because- for whatever reason- comic book fans don't seem to think that Hulk versus Superman isn't quite possibly the most boring fight scene ever concieved (with Hulk versus Thor being the most boring scene ever filmed, for the exact same reason:  it's like going down to docks and watching the drop hammers install pilings.  Over and over, boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Never stops, never ends, never even slows down.  Same trade, lick for lick, all day long until you can't find a reason to keep watching.

 

So now we had capped AP levels were beginning to  reign in DCs and we had begun to assess the DEF / DC relationship.

 

But these are other subjects.  Sorry.

 

The problem at this point was ninjas.

 

I have maintained forever that ninjas are just one of the reasons that the typical superhero team doesn't work:

 

Oh, no!  Iron Man was a bad guy all along!  Quickly, Ralph Macchio!  Use your Crane Kick!

 

Ow!  Ow!  Crap!  I broke my freakin' ankle!   Did...  Did I get him?  Is he down?  Granted, there is absolutely no believable way that "guy wearing a high-tech tank" is _ever_ going to be brought down by "guy with a pair of short sticks on a chain" or "guy with a boxing glove on an arrow," but because it _does_ work in comic books, we had to figure out how to make it work in the game.

 

In a moment of epiphany, it came to us that "_this_ is why Find Weakness _exists_."  From there it was "_this_ is why Haymaker exists..." And a few other things that were meant to level the playing field for the concept-has-no-actual-superpowers guy fighting side by side with Superman and Aquama--  uhhh..  Wonder Woman.

 

Fortunately--  and guys, don't take this in a negative light.  It is just a thought process, okay?  Fortunately, we had no internet then and precious little access to even game stores, let alone numerous other groups to influence or be influenced by, so we avoided the whole "but Haymaker should be for everyone!" thing that became the norm for the rest of the fandom.  Since we knew what a haymaker was in non-game terms, and at the time, game terms defined it the same way, we accepted that this was a special case maneuver for folks who relied on physical prowess.

 

Because the initial rules for Find Weakness let FW stack and stack and stack until you flubbed a roll, we deduced that it was also a special case intended to level the playing field for characters who otherwise would be completely useless in combat-- Bruce Lee versus Mazinger Z, for example.

 

And why not?  There was a roll involved, suggesting there was some kind of action involved.  It all kind of fit with the ninja Schtick "I have been carefully analyzing his X recations to Y, and it is clear that he is gaurding a vulnerability to his vital Z.  If I focus my attack there, then I _should_ be able to...."

 

Etc, etc,  etc...

 

But we capped it along with AP.

 

 

 

  Now, in this case, I am using "ninja" in a broad way, as an easy shorthand (because touch screen thumb typing _suuuuucks_....) for any supers character who isnt actually "super."  Seeker, Batman, and the like.  They are all, for the purposes of this conversation, "ninjas."

 

 

More on that problem in a bit.  Maybe.  If I remember.

 

 

On 1/24/2024 at 2:53 AM, ru5150.two said:

IMHO the problem with (1E-5E) Find Weakness that 6th Edition attempts to fix (by removing it) is it halved the targets defenses no matter how much defenses the target possessed for a very low 10pt fixed cost - and it did this repeatedly. This effect was powerful and a magnet for min/maxers. It showed up on characters far too often - and outside the character concept.

 

I cannot make a universal statement such as "this is broken," simply because it really isn't.  I won't even make a statement like "everyone abuses this!"  I _can_ say that everything this poster noted as a problem lines up perfectly with my own experience.  I even copped to being part of the problem as a player.   😕

 

I can say that it _is_ still problematic if you pass it out to everyone will-nilly "because it is my concept."

 

it becomes very meta at that point: allowing it based entirely on analysis of concept and power level.  For myself, I have no real issues, no actual problems with exactly this, but then, I have always felt there was a reason for the GM to exist beyond designing the characters that the players will beat up and crafting a story they will be engaged by.  But hey; who am I to think my,opinions are importsnt or even credible, right?    

 

 

On 1/24/2024 at 2:53 AM, ru5150.two said:

The 'fix' put into 6E is Armor Piercing w/ Requires a Roll X-. Yes not directly but thats the Limited Advantage it competed against.

 

 

It's no secret that I am not a 6e fan (or 5r, or 4, or 4, or 3.....     )

 

But this is exactly the solution that we can up with in the eighties.

 

I still use it to this day.

 

There were initial complaints- mostly laments about the cost.

 

Now I _believe_ most of you are familiar with my willingness to do "super skills" and "skills as powers"; it get's mentioned any time that I enter a Shape shift conversation.  No; I am not rehashing that here.  As there is zero chance of changing my mind (been doing it since the early days of 2e; it has been playtested a-plenty; I promise. 

 

 

So we did what Steve did:  put "requires a roll" on Armor Piercing.  Find Weakness _is_ Armor Piercing, after all.  To simulate doubling, buy AP again, also with requires a roll, but add "only if previous level is active, or- and forgive the use of the word, but it is what we had back then-  "Linked" to the first instance.  To get a third or forth instance, continue in this vein.  And of course, the whole thing failed if a roll was flubbed, as per the original Find Weakness.

 

The most different thing we did was to give a rather nebulous cap: "cannot reduce opponents defenses below average attack damage for power being used" and declare that, as with the actual armor piercing attack, the character must pick a specific attack (ninja's usually picked "strike" or "martial strike" depending on if they were martial ninjas or not, but a few built a special "giant slayer" attack for use with the ability). 

 

No; I do not put it on STR so it works with any strength-based attack any more than I would put it on a Control Cost and let it apply to the entire Multipower.  Yes; I know "put it on your STR" is a tradition on these boards, and something I will alow for a lot of other things- Affects Desolid, for example-  but not here. The cap was softened already, and the cost per was much lower owing to the limitations, and as far as "get what you paid for, well... Competitively, I found this ability with the limitations and softened cap applied with any _one_ power to be what you paid for. There are even some things where I will allow it.  This isn't one of them).

 

 

On 1/24/2024 at 2:53 AM, ru5150.two said:

 

Yes you only get one halving and you have to make the roll every time you fire. So...

 

With the first build proposed, yes.  However, since "double armor piercing" is a legal and periodically printed thing (as is double Hardened), I allowed this version of "Find Weakness" to be doubled (and more) as well. As is detailed above.

 

This still created a pricing problem,  particularly since one could succeed a second roll and get a "free" second level of AP.  What to do?

 

Well, as the majority of us were still fighting with our "build to _win" and powergaming mindsets, triple and Quadruple AP would show up with some regularity.

 

This is right about the time i capped AP at double.  Again, remember the era:  the hobby as a whole was working really hard to throw off the adversarial nature of the early days of the hobby; power gaming was more the norm--  not optimizing, now; actual powergaming:  making every attempt to create a PC that could break the game to "keep the GM in check," so to speak.

 

In this case, small attacks with dour or more levels of AP were popular; Drain: Recovery was the drain of choice.

 

And the arms-race inspired solution for GMs was quintuple Hardened......

 

To be perfectly honest, re-working Find Weakness and capping AP was a real turning point for us overall, and once the grousing finally died away, we started making serious strides to working together as a group, and from both sides of the screen.

 

But that was an unexpected and unrelated musing; sorry about that.

 

So 

 

Anyway, there was a cascade wffwcr to our entire play style that fell out of the study and tesrinf that went into this (such as finding value in and appreciating defense caps) that utlimately led to more enjoyable games -and-reduced our deoendence on stacks and stacks of power limitations to get those DCs up, etc.  Even combat became less of a chore simply because we couldnt just wade into a four-hour slugfest any time we saw a villain.

 

 

Okay, there was so much more I wanted to say, and more coherently,but the long post /multi-quote post on a pgone screen has, as usual, proven disastrous.

 

So here it is; I am certain meaning can be extracted easily, ib spiye of the choatic arrangement.

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't like find weakness either, but... Karnak from the Inhumans was based entirely around this, as well as a few other characters, so it has its place, but not the way it was built in the old rules, in my opinion.

 

I always understood double armor piercing to simply be a way of negating a level of hardened, not that it quartered defenses.

[unclevlad]

11 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I don't like find weakness either, but... Karnak from the Inhumans was based entirely around this, as well as a few other characters, so it has its place, but not the way it was built in the old rules, in my opinion.

 

I always understood double armor piercing to simply be a way of negating a level of hardened, not that it quartered defenses.

See, now, I don't agree with that.  Within the context of the comics, you can do anything whatsoever, because the writers have 100% control of everything.  That doesn't hold true in a gaming environment, for the PCs...it can be fine for an NPC where the GM has that control, and also, *don't* necessarily have to account for all points spent.  An NPC can also be damage-capped much more easily, at a lower level, so it's not an issue.  That doesn't hold for a PC.

 

Within the general context of a game, IMO, a big issue is forcing PCs to spread around their defenses too much.  It's already an issue in Hero, particularly at higher levels where specialized attacks become more and more potent, and characters can get taken out of the fight for an extended period.  Granted...as written in 5E, it might not be all that expensive, depending on the build...but it can add up unless you really tailor the build.  

 

Specifically, looking at the 5E implementation?  Man, can it be made more complicated???  

 

On the AP, I always thought it was 1/4, but note the diminishing returns anyway.  If 24 DEF gets halved to 12...that's -12. Quartered, it's only another -6.  Comparing...

--8 DCs, double AP.  

--10 DCs, AP.  (This is slightly more DCs.)

--12 DCs, no AP

 

Dice	DEF	Net avg stun	DEF (hard)	Net avg stun
8	25	21.75	20	18
10	25	22.5	20	15
12	25	17	20	22

 

I went to 25 DEF because that's 20 DEF with the +1/4 advantage.   

 

So it's pretty complex;  there's no clear-cut approach.  That said, tho, if double AP only knocks out a layer of hardened, it's likely NOT practical at all.  Plus, the meta rule is, you get what you pay for.  If the 2nd level of AP only counters hardening?  It's not worth the same points...you're not getting what you paid for.

 

 

 

 

 

[dmjalund]

I'd say, concept wise, a naked advantage of Armour Piercing required a Skill Roll should work for most purposes.